 You've tuned in to In The Studio on Davis Community Television, part of our media center, Davis Media Access. My name is Autumn Labarano and I'm your host for this episode. You can find our full archive of In The Studio online at dctv.davismedia.org. New episodes begin airing Tuesdays at 7 p.m. on Channel 15 on the Comcast System. Today we're talking about something that's been personally near and dear to me for the better part of 20 years, and that's our hometown newspaper, The Davis Enterprise. I've been chronicling the changes in media, whether those are technological or just the challenges presented by media consolidation, for the better part of those 20 years working with my guest today, Debbie Davis. I'm going to take a second to welcome Debbie. Thank you very much. Debbie is the editor and assistant publisher of The Davis Enterprise, and we're very fortunate to still have a hometown newspaper here in Davis. It's just not the case in many communities across the land, where newspapers have been at the heart of those communities for a long time. But the past 15 years in particular have brought challenges from the rise of internet news sources, and I'm going to say news sources because they're not always so. And coupled with soaring cost for newsprint and just a wide variety of changes impacting the industry. So we're going to be talking a little bit about some of the changes that Debbie announced that The Enterprise will be undergoing starting in January of this next year, and we're going to be hearing a little bit about her long and storied history with the paper. So again, welcome. Thank you. And let's start with that because as long as I've been involved with The Enterprise, you've been there. Actually, you were there when I was the editor of the California Aggie at UC Davis. That's where we first met long ago. Long ago. I have been at The Enterprise for 36 years, and all this gray hair is as a result. I have loved almost every minute of it. It's a great place to work. It's a great feeling to be part of our community. And I love my job and I love my paper. So how did you land there? Actually, thanks to my fiancée at the time, now my husband, Bruce Galladette. We were living in Oxnard and working at a newspaper there. And he got a job here at the Davis Enterprise as the managing editor. And we were engaged and ready to be married. So I moved north with him and was looking around the Sacramento Valley area for newspaper job. And our boss, Foy McNaughton, said, well, I have a news editor job opening. And if you two don't have any problems working together, I'm okay with it. So he hired me too. And we started within a couple of weeks of each other in the fall of 1979. And that was that. Then Bruce moved on to other newspaper jobs, to other endeavors, a lot of different things. And I took over as editor three years into my tenure there. I was 26 years old. Foy never told anybody how old I was because he didn't want to undermine what we were doing with everybody thinking, oh, she's way too young to do this. But I was going to be a caretaker editor while Bruce went to our sister paper to take care of some things. But he never came back. And that was the easiest job I ever got. And here you are, all these years later. I've been the editor since 1982. So what's that 33 years? And I dare say you're kind of a Davis institution yourself. Everyone knows Debbie Davis and the Davis Enterprise are just sort of synonymous. Yeah, I guess. Thank you for all that work over the years. And thank you too for giving nonprofits, such as Davis Media Access, a voice and community groups. Every time there's a community issue, you find space for us. And it's invaluable. That's what a community newspaper is. I mean, we might have all gone out of journalism school thinking we were going to be the next Woodward and Bernstein and Muckrake and bring the government down. But what a real community newspaper is, is it builds the community. It reflects the organizations that make this place work. It investigates where necessary, the institutions that work on our behalf. And it lets us know who our friends and neighbors really are. And it lets us know what's happening. And what's happening. I love it when people tell me that their event was successful and that people came to buy their wares at a craft show or listen to their speaker or attend their concert or play or whatever it is. I love it when people say that it was a success because a lot of the folks who turned out said, I saw it in the enterprise. And that warms my heart. We had a holiday open house here earlier this week. And it was incredibly packed. And I met all sorts of new people coming in. And they, you know, I asked a couple of them, well, I read it in the enterprise. Good. Glad to hear it. Yeah. Well, let's talk for a minute about the McNaughtons because you mentioned the McNaughton family has been really dedicated to keeping some of the last, you know, local newspapers alive. They are one of the last families that own a sizable number of newspapers. They have stuck it out. And I credit the two brothers, Foy and his brother, Burt. They are my immediate bosses. They both live here in town. Burt lives in Elma Saro, Foy lives in North Davis. Their kids went to school here. They are committed to Davis. But then they have their other community newspapers as well. They are, you know, such an important part of why we are still here. If we were a bottom line corporate run newspaper, they may have, you know, whacked us long ago or at least gutted the staff to the point where we couldn't put out a newspaper that we would be proud of. Now, the enterprise has had to do cutbacks and revisions and retooling over the years. And about, it was about a month ago, you announced that there's going to be some pretty significant changes in January. So let's talk about those. So at first we were very sad. And I think the community was too. But I hope that folks will give this new look a chance. Because after our sadness, we began to really brainstorm, okay, how are we going to make this work? And it feels like the right fit for a community newspaper of our size with our type of advertising base. This is a sustainable model that will get us through this. You know, we've dropped Monday publication, we've laid staff off, we've reduced page count, we've done any number of things to try and get out of the red into the black. The only other alternative to dropping these days of publication Tuesday and Thursday now will no longer be print editions would have been to gut the staff. And that's just not what Foy or Burt or I or any of us wanted to do. So three days a week, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, I think are going to be the right fit for us. First of all, it breaks beautifully for the news flow in this town. City Council meets Tuesday night, school board meets Thursday night. Their news will be timely in the next day's paper. Sports activities often are Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, that'll break just right for us. We will continue to be fresh and relevant in print. But then we also have our 24-7 online presence. So let's talk about that. I know the websites and social media presence too have that. That's been on the increase the last couple of years. But the websites undergone some changes and it's about to get a new overhaul. It's about to get way better. What can we look forward to? Well, Taylor Bule, our IT guy is madly working on an iPhone app. So our website will be totally redesigned. It will look more like a traditional newspaper website than what we have now where you will find changing feature stories up at the top of the home page, breaking news clearly visible at the top of the page, and then fresh news constantly being posted to the site, more visuals, more photos, more graphics, more ads, we hope. That will be the desktop computer website. Then, I don't know the terminology, forgive me, Taylor, but the site will collapse width-wise depending on what type of device you're using. So it will naturally show nice and wide on your desktop. On your laptop, it'll scoot in a little more. On your tablet, a little bit more. And on your phone, a nice, tall, constantly scrolling site that you can easily access on your phone. That means it'll be mobile ready and that's a key thing these days. That's a good thing. It is because 55% of our readers arrive at our site through their mobile phones. And this will be a much more user-friendly, rich experience for them. And I'm just happy that we're going to have something that's a lot more visually appealing and vibrant than what we have now. I can't imagine the changes you've seen in the industry over the years. And you have some, a few recent, if not brand new, reporters. I'm thinking about, I think Felicia Alvarez is pretty recent. Yeah, Felicia, UC Davis Grad, member of the CalAggie Banda. She covers City Hall for us now. Right. So what does the enterprise staff look like these days? Well, interestingly, Felicia is really my only young one. Most of my staff has been around a good long time. I am so fortunate to have people who live here who know the community, who get tips galore, because we're only as good as the folks who talk to us and tell us what's going on. Right. And then, of course, Bob Dunning, who outranks us all. And I should mention that one of the features of our newly redesigned and re-energized website is that Bob Dunning will continue to write five columns a week. Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, they'll be in print. But on Tuesdays and Thursdays, they will be online only. Okay. So if you want to be sure and catch all of Bob's columns and don't miss a day, visit www.davisenterprise.com. The wary eye. That's right. I know. I can't believe how long Bob's been writing that column I know. And he is the conscience of our community now that her power is no longer with us. So I think when I reached out to you for this interview, I told you that I was seeing all this buzz on Facebook about your breaking news. And people were really talking about, oh no, how sad. Oh, I can't believe it. We really need a newspaper. What do you say to people in terms of if you really care about this newspaper? How do you support it? Thank you for asking. First of all, I should reiterate what you've said. People have been so gracious after our announcement, telling me and everybody who works at the enterprise how important we are and how they want us to continue to survive, which I'm so glad everybody realizes community newspaper is vital to a good community. So how do you support us? Here's my best advice. Subscribe. Subscribe. Read us. Act on what you learn in our paper. Go to the events, you know, buy tickets to the plays and concerts and support the nonprofits and go down to city hall and have your say about whatever is on their agenda. But best of all to help us besides financially supporting us via subscriptions. Tell our advertisers that you saw their ad in the enterprise. When you're in their businesses shopping and spending your hard-earned money, let them know that it's because you saw their ad in our paper. Then it closes the loop. When we go to sell another ad to our very valued and treasured advertisers, they'll think, okay, that's money well invested. I sold those shoes or that barbecue or whatever to somebody because I advertised it in the enterprise. Debbie, I personally can't imagine this town without a newspaper. You know, do you remember when Amy Goodman came to Davis a few years ago? She for those of you who don't know Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated democracy now and she came and did a fundraiser for KDRT, our radio station. She was blown away at the amount of media in this town and I'm always very careful when I talk about community media to make sure that we have a hometown newspaper. You're reading what I'm writing in this hometown newspaper. But she was really blown away that we have that and for such a relatively small community that we have such a strong local presence, a journalistic presence. Again, I want to thank you for being at the helm of the enterprise and for doing so much to just kind of keep it going and thriving in uncertain times. I want to wish you the best of luck as you move forward. So again, the website is davisenterprise.com and these changes that we've been talking about will go into effect right after the New Year? Yes, we won't publish on New Year's Day. Traditionally, we take holidays off on Sunday, January 3rd. You will see our new look. We have a total redesign but don't freak out. It will still look like the enterprise. It's just some new fonts of fresher design, bigger photos, more typography. It's just going to look great. So on Sunday, January 3rd, we'll have our new look and then no paper Monday or Tuesday and Wednesday we'll start our new regime. Okay, so we're going to get with the new program. Thanks for taking some time to chat with me today. Thank you for having me, Autumn. I do appreciate it. My pleasure. You've been watching in the studio here on Davis Community Television, Project of Davis Media Access. Thanks so much for joining us. Remember to find the archive of all the programs at DCTV.Davismedia.org.